MRR Column 363 (Never published, never submitted)

[Note: Though, this column was written before I was fired, it was never submitted to MRR.]

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. --Woodrow Wilson

Work. Study. Get ahead. Kill. --1960's anti-war chant

Panic. The Smithsonian Magazine talks about a report that the US is only in the middle of world-countries in math and science-- especially women. The U.S. Department of Education starts a campaign to encourage more female participation in those areas. They make t-shirts: SCIENCE-- IT'S A GIRL THING. The campaign fails miserably.

Meanwhile, students find themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt-- student loans that will never be paid off. Why? So they can go to college and earn a degree to get “a good job” so they can earn enough money to pay off their student loans. Most will not.

The Economist reports: The cost of university per student has risen by almost five times the rate of inflation since 1983, making it less affordable and increasing the amount of debt a student must take on. Between 2001 and 2010 the cost of a university education soared from 23% of median annual earnings to 38%; in consequence, debt per student has doubled in the past 15 years. Two-thirds of graduates now take out loans. Those who earned bachelor’s degrees in 2011, graduated with an average of $26,000 in debt, according to the Project on Student Debt, a non-profit group.

At those prices, who can afford to waste money studying USELESS subjects like art or language? No math unless it's accounting. No science unless it teaches you how to fiddle chemicals into something some drug company can patent for big bucks. Anything else is useless. It won't get you a job.

What is USELESS anyway?

In 2013, useless is not putting money in someone else's pocket. Useless is not consuming. Art is useless unless you sell it. Music is useless unless you create PRODUCT. Music is even tangential to music. Ask any band on tour... the big money-maker is the t-shirts. Nobody buys records. Nobody buys music.

Liberals push for university for all, so even the poor will have a chance to be educated... and get good jobs... and contribute to society (aka General Motors, Walmart, Citibank, Million Dollar Real Estate).

Conservatives want students to pay their own way. Borrow from the bank. Enrich Citibank, before they can even start working for them. Standing on your own two feet, they call it.

FLASHBACK: It's 1988, September. Classes are just starting. It's my first day of Gilyak. In the world, there are about 500 speakers of that language. I'm gonna learn it. This isn't a speaking class, though. It's a grammar class. We learn about the structure of Gilyak, how the grammar relates to the phonemes. Like in Mongolian and Finnish, they have vowel harmony. But unlike those two, the harmony isn't in the front or backitude of the vowels. It's in the height of the tongue position. We're lucky enough to have the world's leading expert on Gilyak teaching the course.

BANG! The HAND OF THE PRESENT reaches back in time. Slaps me on the back of the head.

“Yo Mykel,” says the VOICE OF THE PRESENT, “what the fuck are you gonna do with Gilyak?”

“Yo PRESENT,” I say, “why do I have to DO anything? Why can't I just learn something interesting? Just LIKE learning it... even if I forget it next year. Why can't I enjoy finding out stuff for itself? Learning is fun.”

“Because,” says the VOICE OF THE PRESENT, “you have to live in society. You're going to college for a purpose. You've got a life ahead of you... you're less than a third of the way through. How will this contribute to your future? How will Gilyak make you a better member of society? Get a job? Be productive? What GOOD is it? You'd better plan for your future rather than waste your time with fuckin' Gilyak.”

FLASH TO NOW: It's my niece's college graduation. She's got a B.A.... in marketing. She aced the class How to Do Business on the Golf Course. I shit you not.

I've taken the train to Delaware to attend graduation ceremonies. I stay at a Holiday Inn, right near the university.

I have a few minutes to explore town before pre-graduation dinner.

I make sure I have the stupid little keycard, close the door and head down the hall toward the elevator. I'm in room 44-- easy to remember: Reggie Jackson's number. The door to room 42 is not quite shut. As I pass it, I stop and listen. The sound of panting comes from inside. I nudge the door open with my foot, trying to be as quiet as possible.

Yep, there on the bed, an attractive young man rests a computer on his naked stomach. He's reaching behind the machine to stroke his short but alluring stubbiness. I watch quietly as my own short but alluring stubbiness hardens.

As in every piece of imperfect timing, at this point, the door squeaks.

“What the fuck?” he says, quickly putting himself together.

I recognize the VOICE. It's the VOICE OF THE PRESENT.

“Hey,” I tell him, “I know you.”

“What the fuck?” he repeats.

“You were jerking off,” I tell him. “Just lying in bed jerking off.”

“So?” he asks. “Like you don't jerk off?”

“But what's the purpose?” I ask him. “How will this contribute to your future life? How will this make you a better member of society? Get a job? Be productive? What GOOD is jerking off?”

Get it?

Universities used to be places of learning. You'd study things that were absolutely useless... in the job sense. You'd learn art, philosophy, interpreting Egyptian Hieroglyphics. At Columbia College, I took a course in the History of Violence and Pornography. (I aced that one.) Universities were places of agitation, socialization, give and take, pranks, and inter-racial drug-taking.

Now, most classes are given through the internet. Jerking off at home, rather than having REAL SEX. But jerking off with a purpose: to earn a degree, get ahead in life, get a job, contribute to society. AHHHRGH!

If you want to learn math because numbers are the most fascinating artificial construct. Fine! It's not much different from learning Gilyak. If you want to learn math because AT&T needs number crunchers or because the US Army needs to better direct its killer drones.. not fine.

If you study to get a “good job,” you are wasting your time. Not only your time now, but your future time. And you'll spend the rest of you life trying to convince yourself that owning THINGS... having an SUV or an Internet TV with 453 food channels... is a valid substitute for actually living.

What is it with HAVING A JOB? Why do we care what you can DO with that? How long before universities stop all of the Gilyak classes and instead offer Creative Accounting for Hiding Business Profit 101.

Okay. In today's American society, you NEED a job. You also need to regularly take a shit. But do you really have to go to college for either? And should your life be a vague goal of a “good job” (oxymoronic?) Or should you be LIVING NOW, enjoying knowledge for itself... feeling the bliss of each fart as it escapes into the atmosphere.

Yeah, you work because you have to. But that is neither a goal nor the a reason to study.

Besides, is ANY job better than the real freedom of NOT WORKING?

Instead of men asking for the right to stay home and take care of the kids... or just shop. Women demand EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK. Huh? How bout the right NOT TO WORK. What kind of life is it when all your time is work? For what?

In the old days, women stayed home, did some shopping, cooking, cared for the kids when they weren't in school, watched TV, read books, took day classes. They lead real lives while their stupid husbands crowded into stupid cars or commuter trains to earn a sliver of the money they were making for someone else.

Now women want EQUALITY IN THE WORKFORCE. Why? Equality to what?

How 'bout forcing the idiots who WANT to spend their lives EARNING MONEY... those who live for greed... for riches... to pay for the rest of us?

Instead of creating a society where MORE women are entering the workforce... where MORE women are in executive positions... using their math or science to make money, why not create one where MORE men (and women) LEAVE the workforce... hang out at home... have a personal relationship with their kids? NO BREAD-WINNERS, because the bread shouldn't have to be won. It should be there for the eating.

In Scandinavia, where people are happiest with their lives, it's easy to get welfare. The rich pay up to 90% income taxes and they still live well. In America, life is hell, the rich are the devil, and you get no more protest than people demanding to burn equally. What is it?

The right to work? What about the right to learn? The right to adventure? The right to jerk off at your leisure? In China, people jump out of windows from the strain of building iPhones so you can instantly notify your friends of a cute-boy spotting. Is that your RIGHT? Is it right?

Is it worth giving your life to some corporate monster with MAYBE two days a week where you're not a slave-- to report a CUTE BOY? I don't think so.

We're asking the wrong questions. It's analagous to gay marriage.

In that case, instead of asking “Why do people have to get married at all?” or “Why does the government intrude in the marriage business?” or “Why does marriage give rights that singledom doesn't give?” Homos ask, “Why can't GAYS get married too?” AHHHRGH!

People should ask: “Since most work is dangerous, environmentally destructive, soul-destroying, useless, why do people have to WORK at all?” or “If women traditionally stay home, prepare and LIVE life, why can't men do the same?” Instead, they ask, “Why can't women earn the same money as men for the same work?” AHHHRGH!

Instead of asking, “Is Gilyak an Indo-European language, or is it related to Mongolian... or maybe an isolate, like Basque?”

People ask “Hey, I got this new nose-hair counting app on my cellphone. You want a link to it?”

Add your own AHHHRGH! here.

ENDNOTES: [You can subscribe by email (god@mykelboard.com) or view the blog (mykelsblog.blogspot.com/) for live links and a chance to post comments on the column. Your zines, Cds/records, and... er... private videos... can and should be sent to me at: Mykel Board, POB 137, Prince Street Station, New York NY 10012]

-->Christians, ya gotta love 'em Dept: After the Connecticut school shootings. The Reverend Rob Morris, was reprimanded by the head of his church. Why? He attended a multi-religious memorial service with other preachers and rabbis. The head of the church said Morris shouldn't have attended. Why? By attending, he gave "the false impression that our differences with respect to who God is, who Jesus is, how he deals with us and how we get to heaven, really don't matter in the end."

Morris apologized.

-->The military, you gotta love it Dept: The Yale Herald reports than an associate professor of psychology applied for a federal grant to bring US Special Forces to campus. The professor wanted to teach them "interrogation techniques." He planned on having them practice on "someone they can't necessarily identify with." Who would he use to teach the techniques on?

"We could use New Haven immigrants from Colombia, Ecuador, Morocco and Nepal," suggested the professor. After student/alumni protests, the grant proposal was withdrawn.

And further on the education front:

-->Understanding is one thing we will not tolerate dept: From AMNewYork: an unidentified 10th-grade teacher at Albany High School assigned her students a "persuasive writing" exercise.

She told them to pretend their teacher was a Nazi.

The Albany schools superintendent later met with Jewish leaders and apologized saying "that's not the assignment that any school district is going to tolerate."

The teacher is facing disciplinary action that could include termination.

-->The Kids are All Right dept: The Progressive Magazine reports that the Atwood-Hammon Little League in Illinois is raffling off an AR-15 assault rifle as a fund raiser.

Little League commissioner Steve McClain says, "People from the media keep asking the same question: 'Is this tasteless?' I don't think so. It's all about the kids."

On the MRR front: the editors and their co-conspirators have tried a new trick: Blaming the Victim. It's ironic, because it's a pet shibboleth of feminists that MEN are guilty of this tactic.

“I'm sorry, officer, but I couldn't help myself. She was dressed so... so... slutty. I couldn't keep my hands to myself.”

So, here's the same tactic from the MRR powers. This is from an email to me:

First, you obviously have read not only Mariam's column, but Lydia's column as well, from the previous issue. Both have indicated how incredibly obnoxious and obstreperous you have been throughout this entire process. Lydia in particular has likened your attitude to hari-kiri, a kind of suicidal behavior. I noted the same thing in my own column, when I said you were behaving like "suicide by coordinator" and that your intent was to purposefully get yourself canned.

As usual, I urge you to express your opinion to me at my email address above and to MRR at mrr@maximumrocknroll.com.